**Chapter 631**
“Where did I hear that from?”
By the banks of Twinkling Star Lake, Doro was taken aback upon hearing Audric’s earlier words and spoke with a hint of surprise.
“Are you asking me this because Puppet Core is not the name of your Craftsman God from the Artisan Guild?” Doro inquired, and hearing her question, Audric paused slightly, then furrowed his brows before continuing.
“That’s not entirely correct… How should I put it? Even among the upper echelons of the guild, very few know this name, as it is a very rare deity name in the context of artisans, and there aren’t many occasions to use it within the Artisan Guild.
“As for why that is… I can’t elaborate much, and honestly, I’m not particularly clear on the specifics. Could you tell me where you heard this title first?” Furrowing his brow, Audric looked at Doro earnestly and asked. Upon seeing his expression, Doro decided not to conceal anything.
“It was Beverly who told me, you know, the one you introduced to me when I went to Tivyán. Didn’t she say she was your creation?” Doro said straightforwardly to Audric. Upon hearing Doro’s words, Audric was momentarily taken aback, his eyes widening slightly, and then he murmured.
“Turns out it is… like that…”
“Like what? Is there a problem with Beverly? Isn’t she your work?” Seeing Audric’s reaction, Doro pressed on with her questions, and after a moment of silence, Audric slowly responded.
“Ah… she is indeed my creation, no doubts about it, that’s not a problem. You can continue to trust her in that regard… overall, the matter is a bit complicated, and I need to confirm a few things before I can know the specifics. Right now, anything I say would be too early…”
Audric continued speaking to Doro, and listening to his words, Doro understood that Audric seemed unwilling to discuss this topic further or reveal more information. Understanding this, Doro tactfully shifted the topic.
“By the way, didn’t you say you were traveling to find ways to restore your powers? It’s been a year, have you made any progress?”
“Heh, Miss Meyshos, you’re still so impatient. A year, for an Extraordinary Being of Red Tier, is just a fleeting moment, and for the problems they face, it’s quite insignificant. Not everyone in this world is like you…” Audric responded with a smile.
“In general, it’s quite hard to find a solution to my issues in just one year. However, this trip has been quite fortunate for me, and I’ve found some clues, although it did lead to some trouble. But in terms of results, it isn’t a big deal, so there’s hope, I suppose.”
“Oh, so you’re saying you have hope for fully restoring your golden form? Should I help you again when the time comes?” Doro suggested with interest after hearing Audric’s words, to which Audric chuckled in response.
“Miss Meyshos, I’m wary of getting into debt with favors now. Back when I was an apprentice, I repaid the favors from the time of being Red Tier, but if you incur another favor from me as a Red Tier, would I have to face the Apostles when repaying?” Audric joked lightly, and after finishing his sentence, he paused slightly, his expression becoming somewhat serious as he continued.
“However… if I encounter particularly tough problems later on, I might still need some extra help. At that point, I may have to ask for your assistance, Miss Meyshos. I will try to avoid such situations, but the world is unpredictable, and no one can guarantee what will happen in the future.”
Audric said this with a hint of gravity, and upon hearing his words, Doro nodded.
“Yes, fate is unpredictable; having some backup is never a bad thing. So let’s keep in touch to some extent moving forward; it might come in handy someday.”
Doro said to Audric, and after listening to her words, Audric pondered for a moment before lightly nodding in agreement.
…
After finishing the battle with Gethsmoor, Doro woke up Vania and the others to go save the Archbishop, who had come from afar but had been heavily injured. After a brief exchange with Audric and confirming future contact details, Doro bid farewell to her old principal, watching him embark on his journey once again.
Later, Doro tidied up the scene by Twinkling Star Lake, collecting scattered zombie puppets and other items, then returned to Gramorn alone.
Due to the large-scale hypnosis caused by the Mirror Moon Statue, the streets of Gramorn were now completely silent, without a single sound. All the citizens were asleep in their homes, entirely unaffected by the intense battle that had just taken place by Twinkling Star Lake.
‘I wonder how these ordinary folks will react when they wake up tomorrow morning to see the destruction along the lakebank. The authorities will probably need to work hard to cover this up; luckily, that’s not something I have to worry about.’
As she walked through the dim, deserted streets, Doro reflected on her surroundings and then made her way back to the hotel where she had been staying, heading up to her room after a flight of stairs.
Once inside, Doro changed out of her clothes and took a proper bath. After cleaning herself up, she didn’t rush to rest but, after slightly drying her hair, she put on a white nightgown and settled into a comfortable chair in her room, beginning to reflect on the events of the night. There had been so much that happened, and she needed to organize her thoughts.
First, Doro focused on herself. After half a year of hard work and a series of troubles and crises, she had successfully advanced, becoming an Extraordinary Being of Red Tier. She felt quite pleased with this achievement, as it had been her long-held goal, and all her efforts hadn’t been in vain.
‘Finally, I’ve become Red Tier… The difficulty of advancement is countless times greater than that of Black Earth or White Chalk, and I’ve put in so much effort to achieve this; it wasn’t easy…
‘Now… I should at least have around three hundred years of lifespan, and I can take things slow regarding future matters, gradually seeking the path to Golden. I can relax for a while now.’
Doro thought to herself, then shifted her focus to the new abilities she had gained since advancing to Red Tier, which, due to the nature of her Pure Enlightenment path, actually amounted to quite a few.
Firstly, the ability of the Spiritual Thread Route. With the capability of Life-Commanding Spindle, Doro’s control over zombie puppets increased dramatically, allowing her to manipulate puppets within a maximum radius of sixty kilometers. Within thirty kilometers, she could simultaneously control a hundred zombie puppets without a noticeable drain on her spirituality. The range for manipulating the size of the puppets had been further expanded, but the specific limits still needed to be assessed through experimentation.
Additionally, the primary ability provided by the Life-Commanding Spindle was that the zombie puppets could now release active skills. Doro could command the puppets to execute active abilities under White Chalk, enabling them to cast various sigils and perform rituals. If Doro had any passive spirituality, she could also transmit it to all zombie puppets without additional spiritual cost, easily creating a powerful undead army.
However, this capability had a limitation: the active release of extraordinary abilities required the Human Form Zombie Puppets to function at their best. Puppets that did not take human form would perform poorly; the further the disparity from human form, the lesser the effectiveness of their abilities, until they reached a point where they could not be released at all.
Another ability of the Life-Commanding Spindle was Spiritual Thread Manifestation, which essentially allowed Doro to sh**t her Spiritual Threads from her hands, directly connecting to living targets within range. Doro could forcibly control the linked living targets or transfer damage without needing Puppet Marks to connect to others.
The manifested Spiritual Threads were fundamentally a form of ranged attack. They could be manipulated with great flexibility, not merely shooting out in a straight line without the ability to turn. Doro’s body could release up to ten manifested Spiritual Threads within a fifty-meter radius for seeking and attacking enemies. Her zombie puppets could release one manifested Spiritual Thread to track enemies within fifteen meters. Including her own body, Doro could manipulate up to ten manifested Spiritual Threads simultaneously, and once a manifested Spiritual Thread fully suppressed the will of a living target, it would transform into a standard Spiritual Thread, no longer counting against the limit of ten.
Furthermore, while the manifested Spiritual Threads were flexible to control, their flying speed was not particularly fast, slower than the ranged elemental attacks of Elementalists. Therefore, to successfully link to a target, a certain degree of strategy was required. Each manifested Spiritual Thread could transmit a limited amount of spirituality, so to control a higher intensity target, multiple threads had to be linked at once, while also applying more negative states to the target.
Moreover, compared to the Line-Commanding Witch, the forcible control ability of Life-Commanding Spindle saw a significant enhancement. When linked to an ordinary mortal while in a fully conscious state, it could achieve instant control. For apprentices and Black Earth Extraordinary Beings, using just one manifested Spiritual Thread could suppress their resistance and complete the control, though it required time; while for White Chalk Extraordinary Beings, multiple manifested Spiritual Threads had to link simultaneously, taking some effort to suppress them while they were conscious. To forcibly control a Red Tier Extraordinary Being, all ten manifested Spiritual Threads needed to link successfully, and additional negative states had to be applied to the target for a chance of success.
‘The ability of Life-Commanding Spindle… is quite useful for me. As a Truth Mentor, I naturally have multiple active skills owing to having three branches, allowing for various applications with my zombie puppets. Had it been the original Life-Commanding Spindle, to fully harness this ability would likely require preparing many active sigils and Extraordinary Items. Otherwise, I’d only be able to mess around controlling zombie puppets. However, the original Life-Commanding Spindle could add its third-tier ‘Cup’ passive spirituality nearly without cost to all of my puppets; that means it could instantly create a formidable army of nearly a hundred strongmen, which is pretty terrifying to think about…
‘Then there’s the ability for Spiritual Thread Manifestation. With the manifested Spiritual Threads as active offensive methods, I don’t have to keep worrying about how to engrave enemies actively. Having enough manifested Spiritual Threads and flexible manipulation means as long as I can resolve the issue of slower speeds, they can perform excellently in actual combat…’
Doro thought to herself, and after pondering for a while, she shifted her attention to the abilities of other branches, moving on to the Path of Mind Trickery.
The Path of Mind Trickery was the new branch Doro chose during her advancement, so she would start from scratch in sorting out the abilities of the various stages of this path.
In Black Earth, the Path of Mind Trickery was referred to as Dream Interpreter. The abilities of the Dream Interpreter included personality profiling and hypnosis. The hypnosis ability shared similarities with Dream Eaters and Vampire hypnosis, both capable of lulling individuals into a slumber unconsciously. Among these, the Dream Eater’s hypnosis was the strongest, followed by the Path of Mind Trickery, with the bl**d Darkness Path coming last. The hypnosis from Dream Eater could affect any perceptive target within range during White Chalk and even perform area hypnosis, while the bl**d Darkness Path’s vampires needed to maintain near proximity and make use of language and gestures to hypnotize others.
The hypnosis ability of the Path of Mind Trickery was situated between Dream Eater and bl**d Darkness. In Black Earth, it was roughly equivalent to the hypnosis strength found in bl**d Darkness during White Chalk, though slightly weaker. Besides the hypnosis ability, the Dream Interpreter also possessed another capability, which was personality interpretation—a capacity that required interaction to be fully effective.
The Dream Interpreter had a form of allure that could be turned on and off freely, a quality derived from extraordinary powers. This allure made it easy for others to develop trust in the Dream Interpreter, willingly engaging in conversation. By communicating with someone, the Dream Interpreter could continuously perform an interpretation based on their inherent, extraordinary level, allowing them to draw a personality profile of that individual in their consciousness.
Through this personality profile, the Dream Interpreter could discern what kind of character the other person possessed, their habits, their type, and their hobbies. While it couldn’t peer into others’ memories like a Dreamwalker, it could thoroughly grasp various personality traits, understanding their nature.
Additionally, this communication didn’t necessarily have to occur with the individual whose personality was being profiled; it could also involve people around them or simply acquaintances. As long as they knew the target and were familiar with them, the Dream Interpreter could engage in conversation, interpreting the target’s personality profile from others’ perspectives. With every conversation held with someone who had familiarity with the target, the Dream Interpreter would accumulate progress toward profiling that target.
Once the profiling progress is fully accumulated, the Dream Interpreter wouldn’t merely have comprehended the target’s personality; the interpreter would gain a form of psychological suppression over the target. During interactions with the target, the Dream Interpreter could use any words to subtly hint at them, and the target would subconsciously comply, even if this suggestion was as simple as a regular statement with no intention of using any spirituality. The Dream Interpreter could unconsciously manipulate the target whose personality had been interpreted, even if the target was hostile. Influences of the personality profile could still persist, allowing the Dream Interpreter to issue various suggestions during combat, making the target miss shots, strike the wrong person, forget to dodge, or step on the wrong foot, etc.… These suggestions only needed words, requiring no spirituality or unnecessary actions, similar to eye contact.
